Age twenty. Watery eyes, mouth wide open, and the high-pitched praises of our Lord and Savior come pouring from my lips. My hands and arms are raising high in the air; my fingers are shaking as well as my legs. I begin to jump up and down to the beat the Holy drummer pounds out as myself and one hundred others feel the power of Holy Spirit as it sat down within our souls.

The dreams stir through my mind. The experience itself was not a dream. The events that led me to this moment feel like a dream. It is like a long running, sometimes Technicolor, sometimes black and white dream.

I am a sinner. That's the bottom line, first and foremost. I will always be a sinner. Is that reality? Or am I selling myself short? It's reality selling itself short. I can be sanctified without being perfect. I can be Holy without being perfect. I can be righteous without being perfect.

Cute philosophy, right? But guess what, it's true. As sure as I'm a Black woman born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia – it's true.

The Holy Spirit reveals different things to different people because we all have different paths to walk in this lifetime.

There's a moment in my life when everything stopped at the blink of an eye. My life stood still, in perfect peace and serenity. The moment I discussed earlier. Dancing, shouting, jumping, shaking, and screaming God's praises. That moment of cleansing has changed my life forever.

It's not just about the physical hoops my body jumps through when the Spirit sits down in me – it's the beauty of the situation. It's the psychological and emotional transformation taking place within me. My whole way of thinking changes so quickly.

Overwhelming. Exhilarating. Overjoyed. Frightening. Happy. Crazy. Mix all of those emotions together, add a whole new way of thinking. Some old memories. The feeling is that moment in time.

The one moment in time when all beings and things Holy, Righteous, and True come together over my body, my life, and my time and space and in a resounding, unified voice collectively declare, "YES!!!!"

There's a lot of power in the words – Yes, Thank you, Amen, and Why me. All of those words I have used and still on occasion depending upon the moment in which I am living.

I am living – right now – as I write this piece, in a moment of confusion and disgust. I want that feeling back again. I want the same peace and calm come over me that took place within me so long ago. Actually, it was ten years ago.

As I write this piece, I am thirty years old. Trying to reclaim an inkling of the sanctified feeling I once felt at the age of twenty.

Will I ever get it back? Yes…no…maybe. I'm not sure of anything anymore. Well, I am sure that I will remain open and hopeful. I am an open channel for the Holy Spirit to sit down within me once again.

Since, I am a sinner. Since, I will always be a sinner I need the cleansing all the time. If there was a river, lake, or ocean I could go to on a daily basis, I would be there bright and early every morning (I'm not a morning person) to dive head first into the baptismal pool of life – fully submerging myself within the warmth of its waves, letting the clean water wash every fear, every pain, every weakness, and every nightmare away from my life.